Amphibifun Trivia Quiz

Answer: NASCAR

Ontario native Harold "Frog" Fagan competed in just 20 races over his four year career in a sport he only took up after serving in the Royal Canadian Navy. His career best eighth place finish came in 1968, at the 1968 Fireball 300 race at the Asheville-Weaverville Speedway in Weaverville, North Carolina.

He was driving a Ford for this race, as he did for the majority of his career and earned his unusual nickname from an acquaintance who thought all Canadians were of French descent.

Answer: Sausages

Toad in the Hole is a great dish of sausages cooked in Yorkshire pudding and served with a rich onion gravy. What is there not to like?
In "The Art of Cookery" (1747) by Hannah Glasse, the dish was called Pigeon in a Hole, and called for pigeon to be used as this was the cheapest meat of the time. There is no known reference to the dish ever having been cooked with real toads and the unusual name is believed to come from the sausages in the batter resembling toads peeking out of their burrows.

Answer: Monty Python's Flying Circus

The Monty Python sketch involved a retrospective look at the careers of East End gangsters, Doug and Dinsdale Piranha, and Dinsdale's fear of an enormous imaginary hedgehog called Spiny Norman, on the current affairs show, "Ethel the Frog". Even as I am typing this it sounds bizarre, but it was Monty Python, so I guess that makes it normal?
Ethel the Frog were at the forefront of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, alongside bands such as Iron Maiden, Saxon, Tygers of Pan Tang and Motorhead. Unfortunately, despite being championed by many rock DJs and building up a loyal live following, the band never hit the big time that found many of their contemporaries. They were signed to major record label, EMI, but released just one album in 1980 before being dropped and are best remembered for their rock cover of the Beatles hit, "Eleanor Rigby" (1978).
Would Spiny Norman have been a better choice for a band name? I'm sure they are out there somewhere.

Answer: Newt Scamander

"Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" (2001) was written by Rowling under the pseudonym Newt Scamander. This nom de plume came complete with a back story about his mother being a breeder of hippogriffs, his expulsion from Hogwarts school, his work at the Ministry of Magic and his qualifications as a magizoologist. The book was used by Harry Potter during his many adventures, which were also chronicled by Rowling, and 80% of the cover price of each book goes directly to the Children In Need charity.

It is estimated that "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" (2001) along with "Quidditch Through the Ages" (2001) raised over £17 million for the charity within the first ten years of publication.

Answer: Salamander

"Salamander" was a scrolling shooter arcade game featuring the ship Vic Viper which had first appeared in "Gradius" (1985). As one of the first mainstream two player simultaneous shooters that also offered both horizontal and vertical scrolling stages, "Salamander" won many plaudits from the industry.

It has continued to retain its popularity, long after its original release date, with versions made available for mobile phones in 2003 and the PlayStaion 4 in 2015, although in some markets it is known by the name "Life Force".

Answer: Canada

The Cree band led by Big Bear had settled in the area near Frog Lake, in the District of Saskatchewan in the Northwest Territories but were angered by the fact they were kept in a state of near starvation by the local government-appointed Indian agent. Buoyed by a Métis victory over the North-West Mounted Police forces at the Battle of Duck Lake, Big Bear's war chief, Wandering Spirit, ordered his men to act and Indian agent Thomas Quinn was taken hostage before the Cree took control of the community, along with several more hostages.
As Quinn refused to follow Wandering Spirit's commands, the situation spiralled out of control, resulting in the deaths of nine unarmed townspeople, causing the Canadian government to send police and troops to the area.
Wandering Spirit, Little Bear, Walking the Sky, Bad Arrow, Miserable Man, Iron Body, Ika and Man Without Blood were captured and put on trial for the murders. They were allowed no legal counsel and their defence of mitigating circumstances was not allowed and all eight men were hanged on November 27th 1885.
In 1905, Frog Lake became a part of the newly formed province of Alberta and the site of the massacre was designated the "Frog Lake National Historic Site" in 1923. For a wonderful first hand history insight into this episode, I recommend "Two Months in the Camp of Big Bear" (1885) written by Theresa Gowanlock and Theresa Delaney about their time as hostages following the killing of their husbands during the massacre.

Answer: Toad The Wet Sprocket

Toad The Wet Sprocket, in the same vein as Ethel The Frog, took their name from a sketch on the BBC show, Monty Python's Flying Circus (1969-74). Unlike Ethel though, Toad achieved some mainstream success both with the singles from the question and their 1994 tracks, "Fall Down" and "Something's Always Wrong" which both made the top 50 on the Billboard chart in USA.
Movie and T.V. use of their music also helped cement the band's popularity and "Brother" was used in the Mike Myers film "So I Married an Axe Murderer" (1993), while "Good Intentions" (1995) was featured in hit TV show, "Friends" (1994-2004) as well as being included on the show's accompanying soundtrack in 1995.
Toad The Wet Sprocket split up in 1998, but to the delight of fans everywhere, after several smaller group projects, the band announced a full time reformation in 2009 and in 2013 released the album "New Constellation", their first since "Coil" which was a top 20 hit on the Billboard 200 in 1997.

Answer: Salamander

To give him his full title, Lieutenant General Bernard Freyberg, 1st Baron Freyberg, VC, GCMG, KCB, KBE, DSO & Three Bars was nothing short of a military marvel. He served with the British Army during WWI, seeing action at Gallipoli and on the Western Front, becoming the youngest general in the British Army. During WWII, he led the New Zealand Expeditionary Force at the Battle of Greece, the Battle of Crete, the second Battle of El Alamein and the second Battle of Cassino as well as being one of the first to enter Trieste and encounter Toto's communist led Yugoslav Partisans.
This amazing life, during which he spent over ten years fighting German forces, led to Churchill christening Salamander due to his "ability to pass through fire unharmed".
Following the Second World War, Freyberg served as Governor-General of New Zealand from 1946 to 1952 before returning to England to take up his seat in the House of Lords.
There are many buildings and streets named in his honour in New Zealand, as well as the Freyberg Mountains in Victoria Land, Antarctica, which includes the Alamein Range, Gallipoli Heights and the Salamander Range and the Freyberg mountain range in New Zealand, the highest peak of which is Mount Freyberg.

Answer: Smokey and the Bandit

"Smokey and the Bandit" (1977) was a huge box office hit with only "Star Wars" making a higher gross amount in the same year.
It starred Burt Reynolds as trucker Bo "Bandit" Darville and Sally Field as runaway bride Carrie, aka "Frog", alongside Jerry Reed as Cledus "Snowman" Snow and Jackie Gleason as Sheriff Buford T. Justice, aka "Smokey".
The film was written by Reynolds' stunt double, Hal Needham, although as Sally Field later revealed, this writing was basically a list of ideas and the majority of the movie was improvised and most of the script was ad libbed. No matter, the public loved it, as reportedly did famed director Alfred Hitchcock, and it spawned the country music hit "East Bound And Down" (1977) which was a top five hit on both the Canadian country charts and the Billboard Hot Country charts in USA.

Answer: POW/MIA Flag

The flag for Prisoners of War (POW) and those military service people Missing in Action (MIA) was created in 1972 by Heisley as a response to the large number of service personnel involved in these situations during the Vietnam conflict.
It is a black flag, featuring a white silhouette of a man in front of barbed wire and a guard tower, with the words "You Are Not Forgotten" below the illustration.
Until 2019, the flag was required to be flown on Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, National POW/MIA Recognition Day, and Veterans Day but the law passed that year requires it to be flown at most federal properties where the flag of the USA is flown.
The POW/MIA flag was first flown from the rotunda of the White House in 1989, and in 2020, President Trump attracted widespread criticism when his administration moved it to a less visible spot on the South Lawn, when approximately 82,000 American service personnel were still classified as POW/MIA.